A conventional umbrella with a wind escape (10a) as illustrated in FIG. 18 was granted to Wen P. Lee as U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,166, which includes a collapsible frame structure (14a) in which each upper rib (30a) is segmented into three pivotal members (50, 52 and 54) in which the inner member (50) is pivotally affixed at its inner end (32a) to the inside cap (26) to support the upper canopy (16). Each stretcher (34a) is radically pivotally affixed at its inner end (36a) to the runner (28), is pivotally affixed at its center (56) to the inner member (50) of the upper rib (30a) and is pivotally affixed at its outer end (38a) to the outer member (54) of the upper rib (30a). Each lower rib (40a) is pivotally affixed at its inner end (42a) to the middle member (52) of the upper rib (30a) and at pivotal portion (58) to the stretcher (34a) to support the lower canopy (18) to keep the wind escape opening (12) formed therebetween.
However, this conventional umbrella has the following drawbacks:
1. The rib assembly includes two sets of parallelogram linkage among the ribs (52, 50, 34a, 40a, 54) to increase the production complexity and cost. PA1 2. The wind escape opening (12) is so large to easily direct rain water inwardly to wet the umbrella user through the opening (12). The opening (12) can not be minimized due to the volume as occupied by the plural pivotal joints such as at numerals 42a, 58, 38a. PA1 3. There is not provided with any automatic restoring mechanism to restore the upper rib members to close the opening whenever the wind has escaped. The strong wind may still invert the upper ribs and upper canopy upwardly, requiring a manual downward restoring of the upwardly inverted ribs and canopy.
The present inventor has found the drawbacks of the conventional windproof umbrella and invented the present multiple-fold windproof umbrella with compact restoring mechanism.